Go Spurs!

I See Skies Of Blue...

I drove into work this morning - 1 a.m is morning to me - after giving up on sleeping several hours prior, and listened to sports talk radio which at that time of day does seem - like the highways - to attract its inordinate share of drunks.

I listened as a caller asserted and the host (the sobriety of both in doubt) agreed that the Spurs win in Utah "was part of an NBA conspiracy to prop up the Spurs because they don't have tattoos, and have a lot foreign players."

I chuckled about it as I went through my normal routine of sifting through faxes looking for actual news. There were the usual two or three faxes from a little old lady who sends faxes almost every day to my office, the White House, various members of Congress and I'm sure any number of others. She gets a thorn in her craw about almost everything...and immediately fires off a fax. She sometimes sends one, sometimes twelve. One topic per fax since she's apparently convinced we live in a short attention span world - a position with which I can't necessarily disagree. Today one issue which demanded immediate action was the repeal of taxes on social security benefits, and then another fax called Bill Clinton a traitor and urged President Bush not to allow U.N. troops on to U.S. soil. Then she said if the President didn't agree, he was a traitor.

She always signs her faxes, "God bless you."

I hung onto a fax from a local animal care outfit that conducts free spay and neuter clinics announcing they were planning to have a couple of clinics in the weeks ahead. They wanted me to remind people to bring their cats to them "in cages or pillow cases."

I called a few people, including a police officer who told me how he had arrested a young woman for endangerment to a child. Apparently Mom couldn't keep her 14-year old daughter in line and their argument spilled out onto the front yard of their home where Mom decided to get her teenager's attention with 50,000 volts of electricity. She zapped her three times with a stun gun.

I wrote a story about another woman whose goal is to have "the biggest breasts in Europe." She had been fired from her job and couldn't understand why her boss told her that she and her "42-H" surgically altered breasts were not an asset to the company.

I then came across a story of a new reality show. This a Dutch program where a terminally ill woman will choose one of three contestants to receive one of her kidneys. Viewers can vote for their favorite potential kidney recipient via text message.

I was wrapping up my duties for the day when a song popped into my head as I stumbled across a delightful new filing with the patent office by an inventor who wants to merge two technologies...the washing machine and the MP3 player.




I still had that tune in my head...and I thought to myself,"Some day I may be able to sit by my washing machine and listen to Louis Armstrong sing it."


And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world

Time Out

I'm done tinkering...at least for a while.

I can not fix some things with the blog's design, but I've managed to make it look readable in "Firefox" and tolerable in Internet Explorer.

This post is really just to test to make sure one "unseen" change I thought about making, didn't get included.

Folks who use an 800 x 600 resolution may see the page a little funny, or the type may be too small. If you are using Firefox, remember you can increase the size of any page text by simply using the "Cntl +" command...like "Cntl -" reduces the size.

I'm not certain this is how the blog will stay...but it's going to stay this way for a while because I've wasted too many hours considering other options and there are Spurs games to watch chores to do, etc.

The Magic Of London

Our youngest child has returned from a mission trip to England. She was eager to see all the sites as time permitted.
It was an exciting time for her, albeit her sight seeing was limited a bit.

Of course, some things seem more more magical in the movies than they do in real life.




Isn't that always the case?

Tic Toc...Yet Another Clock

"Time is on my side" - The Rolling Stones

Actually, time and Blogger are working against me...but time is on my mind.

Blogger just added a feature that I can actually use...it "auto saves" your posts while you're writing them...every 30 seconds or so.

Amazingly clever idea isn't it? How do those brilliant minds at Blogger dream up this stuff?




Oops, sorry I must have drifted off a little bit...it was like a dream world all my own.

I realize I'm being a little snotty toward Blogger since the new "auto save" feature would have come in real handy about 4 hours ago when for some reason Blogger locked up on me and I had to close my browser. Right then I thought, "Hey, how cool! For once even though Blogger has frozen up for absolutely no apparent reason this time I won't have lost everything I wrote!"

I was right too!

The new "auto save" feature saved...the title of my post.

The 500 or so words that followed...well, maybe the auto save feature has a snooze button...or now that I think about it, editorial judgment.

It is probably for the best, it gave me a reason to write a nasty post on the Blogger forums, and write this entire post from scratch which means I'm still not sleeping. Oh, I should mention that's a good thing...at least I think so.

You see I believe I have another sleep study tomorrow. I say, "believe" because I have two appointments written on the little card they gave me at the doctor's office prior to my first sleep study and I am not positive which is the follow up sleep study and which is simply a follow up doctor's appointment.

I'm working on the assumption that I'll be taking part in another sleep study, which means, like the first time, I'm depriving myself of sleep so that I can be certain I'll hit the bed snoring despite the torture inflicted by these somewhat sinister supposedly skilled slumber sadists specialists.

I actually did call my "sleep doctor" in hopes of clearing up my confusion, being sleep deprived and all. I thought it might be a good idea - odd as it sounds - to confirm my appointment, but then I remembered no one in the doctor's office actually answers the phone. Every time I call, no matter which "option" I choose, I always get some different person's voicemail, and no one ever calls me back. Trust me, I mean no one. I left a lot of messages...right now I think my best hope is that someone might break into their office and steal their phone system...and they'll be really polite.

I've only seen this doctor once and it took two weeks for the doctor's "appointment specialist" to return my call. I left a voicemail every day. I called to make sure she wasn't on vacation. I called to make sure she wasn't dead. I never did get an explanation, but then again it is a sleep center...maybe they have the phones turned off...maybe everyone takes really long naps. Then again I may be hallucinating from a lack of sleep...I did just have some type of vague recollection of doctors actually calling me to confirm appointments. How nutty is that?

Well, I'm not going to lose sleep over it...actually I suppose, I am...but it's deliberate.

It's also really trivial in light of the fact that THE GOVERNMENT IS LYING TO US!!!!!

Gee, I probably should have brought that up first thing huh? It's certainly a more compelling lead sentence, far more catchy than one line from an old Rolling Stones' song. By the way, I was going to include more lyrics from that tune until I read them. I know people say rap music is bad poetry, but believe me the early Stones weren't exactly writing Shakespeare.

Oh yeah, sorry, THE GOVERNMENT IS LYING TO US!

My apologies again, I don't really mean to scream, then again it does help me stay awake.

Did you know there's this clock that's counting down to a major event that will effect all humanity?



Oops, wrong clock. That's probably my fault, lack of sleep and all that. That's the Doomsday clock, which I'm sure you're familiar with...a real little day brightener. I wonder if Blogger might consider making a cute "widget" for it, but that's not actually the clock I'm talking about.

The Doomsday Clock is simply predicting how close we are to the precipice of world-wide nuclear destruction. I'm not sure whether to hope that it's accurate or not...then again, presumably it's an atomic clock...I mean that would make sense.

See what happens when I get groggy?

Trust me, it's worse for me...especially since I can't fathom that anyone has read all this without dozing off by now.

Oh shoot! My bad again! I need to get to the point and put you out of your misery.

THE GOVERNMENT IS LYING TO US and there's a clock keeping track.

Okay, that doesn't make any sense at face value, but it's not due completely to the fact that I may very well be unconscious.

I should have let the expert explain it. The expert is this guy.



He looks wide awake doesn't he?

He's Steve Bassett:Political Activist. Sounds sort of like the name of a TV series that didn't last the season huh?

Steve's not on TV but he has a video on his website which I went to today after finding his press release wadded up in the bottom of the bag I take to the office each day. It had been down there since last month and I almost threw it away, until I remembered the clock. The website is for the Paradigm Research Group which I know is probably self-explanatory, but I was a little groggy and didn't quite know what that meant...but they've got a clock too.




Cool huh? It's the "Paradigm Clock!" Of course, you probably already figured that out since it says "Paradigm Clock" in the background.

Some of you keen observers - oh, who am I fooling, I'm not sure I'm even reading this anymore - might notice that the Paradigm clock is set to 11:59:45...fifteen seconds to midnight. The Doomsday Clock is set to six or seven minutes to midnight...or Greenland, depending on your viewpoint.

That's because the Paradigm clock is not predicting our doom! To quote the Paradigm Research Group, their clock is marking down the time to the "Disclosure."

That doesn't clear it up for you either?

Okay, the "Disclosure" will mark the end of a 60-year "truth embargo" imposed by federal authorities.

THE GOVERNMENT IS LYING TO US and we're within seconds of the "Disclosure."

I must admit that when I first read that the Paradigm Research Group had been waiting 60 years to finally be able to point toward Washington and say, "Some people there are liars" that it did seem like perhaps they had spent the past 60 years never listening to the radio, reading a newspaper, watching TV, or they had been blindfolded and held hostage by members of a militant wing of the Optimist club.

Then I realized I needed to learn more about Steve Bassett:Political Activist! I mean doesn't that name just scream action figure to you?

Obviously, you can't be a political activist and have your head stuck in the sand and indeed that proved true in Steve's case. Steve heads up a political action committee...which is predicting in 15 seconds of "Paradigm time" - the clock hasn't moved since over a year ago - the "truth embargo" will be lifted. The "Disclosure" will have arrived!

Oh, Steve's political action committee is dedicated to "exopolitics." Sorry, I'm too tired to look it up. The PAC is called X-PPac, which surprisingly has nothing to do with Windows XP.

But members of X-PPAC, X-PPAC Men I suppose you could call them, do believe that the window is finally going to be opened within mere seconds (Paradigm Standard Time seconds) and acknowledge "an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race."

That's right, do I even need to write it? It's not XP...it's ET!






Now before you start thinking it's silly that there's an actual political action committee dedicated to the premise of the imminent revelation of a 60 year conspiracy to conceal an "extraterrestrial presence" engaging the human race, consider this:

You read this entire thing.

And I wrote it.

So, Steve Bassett:Political Activist and any X-PPAC men of the Paradigm Research Group who might happen by, personally I salute you.



We all need to dream...some of us more than others.

Mental Constipation

I've been thinking lately- yes, that could be why some of you are smelling smoke - about this idea of stewardship which I plan to write about, but I don't seem to be able to gather it into a cohesive starting point and the more I think about it the more I realize how I might be able to expand upon it. The result has been that I haven't been able to write about it at all.

So, I'm going to set it aside and let it germinate a bit longer. I really want to be able to express my thoughts well, and as a result it's stopped me from writing anything at all.

Not that I have time to write anything now. I'm due to meet with friends for an informal gathering of believers and Amy and I have this bizarre idea that we might actually be "on time."

Yeah, don't bet the farm on that...Amy and I share many traits, but the concept of being "on time" is not one of them.

I'm one of those, "If you're 10 minutes early you are on time people" while Amy is "If we get there at all we're on time" people.

At this moment however, I still need to change clothes, let the dogs in, and get rid of my extensive bed head from my afternoon siesta.

But, I'm writing instead.

Time to get off the pot...as they say...and get moving.

I Have No Idea

I have no idea what I'm doing, but that hasn't deterred me yet. Yes, the blog is going to change in appearance, maybe...

Well, I mean it's obviously changed already, but I'm tinkering around far more than I should, with a dream of designing a template that I like and which I might be able to carry over onto subsequent pages while staying within the limitations of Blogger.

There's only the one sticking point, which I mentioned previously...I have no idea what I'm doing.

I suppose I'm only trying to reassure you...your eyesight is fine.

I'm controlling the horizontal and the vertical.

Yeah, be afraid...very afraid.

I do plan to post something more meaningful...which isn't too hard to envision even with my eyes closed. However these little tweaks are consuming my energies at the moment, so that will have to wait.

Ironically, I have this idea about writing about being a proper steward.

Yeah, probably going to have to factor in the idea of proper stewardship of my time in that post...when I get around to it.

Until then...forgive my mad tinkering.

Lost In The Translation...Or Maybe The Dust

I think we've got some new residents moving in soon. I haven't exactly been in the loop too much on this process, because these are two young women working internships over the summer, not our usual "upper room ministry" guests who have, for the most part, been people in immediate need with rather untidy lives.

These young women, both college kids, or graduates, or around the age of my daughters - okay, I don't really know squat about them personally - will be working with the local newspaper in photography and reporting. They have their own transportation, jobs, and heck - they even want to pay us rent, albeit we've insisted on it being fairly minimal since we still consider this a ministry...plus they've offered to dog sit when we go out of town.

Yeah, Amy somehow found them and it sounded so good I decided I'd stay out of it for fear of mucking it up.

However, now I'm realizing crunch time is coming. There's some uncertainty as to when we should expect them, and they're not coming together - really I don't think they know each other, at least not more than via an email relationship.

Suddenly I've noticed, okay...maybe it hasn't been exactly sudden...more like now I'm panicking about it, that we've been living pretty "untidy lives." Our house is a wreck.

It's been only Amy, the dogs and me for a while now...the "QUARANTINED" sign on the front door seems to keep most folks at bay, except girl scouts and some rather persistent Mormons...but even they never venture from the porch. So I haven't been too concerned about our lack of house keeping, unless I trip over something or find a rodent leaving the house in disgust.

In truth, we never really fully recovered from when work crews destroyed most of the house while "fixing" the foundation. Moving everything in your home into one room only to then have it all caked in inch thick concrete dust because the foundation repair "experts" apparently thought taping tarps to the door frames "as high as they could reach" would be sufficient, only gave me a chance to delicately explain that most of these guys were sort of short. They didn't seem to be offended, they smiled and nodded politely...then again they didn't speak English and I don't speak Spanish.

So everything, I mean everything in the house got filthy, not only the stuff we stuffed away so it wouldn't get filthy, but every square inch of the house, every window frame, every book shelf, every piece of clothing, every curtain, all the carpets, and of course all our dust cloths.

Needless to say it's been a gradual - okay, a very very very slow - recovery process with the exception of complaint letters about the foundation firm which I managed to whip out rather quickly, after blowing the dust off my keyboard and finding some printer paper that wasn't concrete gray.

Admittedly this recovery period has been extended a tad bit by the fact that we are not people that any sane person has ever has ever branded as "neat and tidy"...okay, we are lazy. I can't help it if once I shoveled out the TV I realized there were a bunch of programs on our DVR we needed to catch up on.

In any case, we've started to crank up the process of getting things "tidy" in earnest. Dang re-runs.

Actually Amy found a house keeper. I don't know where Amy finds these people, young interns needing a place to live, people who will actually clean our house, but Amy does, and to me it's like the hot dog making process...don't ask.

The housekeeper is showing up tomorrow, apparently undaunted by our repeated warnings that it will be far worse than she expects. Of course, we're not completely certain she speaks English, but her husband assures us she understands and won't run out of the house screaming.

Even when you pay someone to help you get your house in order, the reality is you've got to get your house in some type of order before they arrive. I mean I can't ask this woman to sort through the mountains of mail that I've tossed in a basket looking to make sure there's not a check from Ed MacMahon amid the Diet Pepsi cans, and empty nyquil bottles from last winter. Well I could ask her, but I have certain standards - plus I'm not sure how much she'd charge.

So, I've spent most of today, and likely a good chunk of tomorrow morning, clearing away the top layer of clutter.


Believe me there's still plenty to do.

We've made some headway, but the house still looks like a war zone. Still, if the housekeeper does run away screaming, odds are I won't even notice.

I really need to clean my glasses and probably remove some of the dust from ears.

Maybe learn some Spanish too.

Spurred To Yawning

There's no joy in Mudville...or Spurs land.

It's half-time, and I'm half awake...still all the hoopla surrounding the Spurs/Suns series, the whining, the dirty plays, the flopping and the "fan" intensity which can only be described as "hatred" has really taken a lot of enjoyment out of watching the Spurs.
Of course, right now they're also stinking up the court with their play while the Suns, as I suspected, are playing like guys with nothing to lose. I still love the team, know they're great guys and I'm sure this too shall pass.

Yet, there's a lesson here, which I should probably remember more often. Investing too much in anything can lead to disappointment or at the very least, severe sleep deprivation.

I'm in it for the long haul...heck, I stuck with the Cowboys even when Barry Switzer ran the team...or thought he did.

Sticking with the Spurs doesn't require nearly as much Maalox.

Still it is one of those nights when a quote of wisdom of which I'm probably overly fond comes readily to mind.



"It's not much of a tail, but I'm kind of attached to it."


======================================

Okay, now that the game is over there's a teeny bit of enjoyment, but I do feel guilty...a teeny bit.

Go Nuts Go!

The Spurs game with Phoenix is supposed to start in a few minutes and I won't be able to watch.

We have three televisions, two digital video recorders, at least one working VCR, a small satellite dish, and even cable - albeit just for Internet access.

My problem is that the TV show "24" is on now...and so is "Heroes." I can't really follow "Heroes." I enjoy watching it, but I haven't quite kept up with all the players. Amy however has been in from the start, so that's recording on DVR#1. I have an addiction to "24," admittedly which has now morphed into what would be a great drinking game if I drank like I did years ago, since Amy and I try to keep track of how many times the characters say, "I'll get back to you" or "Nukes" or any number of phrases, plus various recurring thematic elements, not the least of which is trying to guess which character will suddenly have a crazy relative show up who is pushed by destiny - or bad writing - into controlling the fate of all mankind.

In any case, both shows are recording and among the many problems with our satellite service is that if you are recording two shows on your two DVR system you can't watch anything but one of those shows or something you recorded previously. It's complicated, but essentially there is only one actual DVR device, shared by all the televisions in the house.

So, I must wait until 9 p.m. to start watching the game. That's really fine, I figure the game won't tip off until 8:45, and then I have this wild idea that I might catch the first few minutes of the game via a technology that only people really in the know can utilize properly....yeah, I'll turn on the radio.

This game should be really intriguing. There's been incessant whining by both Suns and Spurs fans and some Suns players/coaches about the officiating and in particular allegations that Bruce Bowen, one of the nicest, most Christian, decent human beings on earth is "dirty." Bowen plays tough defense and over the years I've heard a lot of players complain...usually when they lose. Most true "star" players don't grouse, Kobe Bryant - not exactly Mr. Clean himself - has never taken the media bait on Bowen, but Amare Stoudamire and the Phoenix head coach have been beating the drum almost constantly during this series. That's put Bowen under the microscope and the other night when his knee connected to the groin of the Sun's Steve Nash, the frenzy went up a notch. Nash, being a true star, didn't say a word...of course for a while he couldn't...but even afterwards he didn't say anything negative. Instead he encouraged his team to play harder.

Still if you go to YouTube and look for Bruce Bowen, you'll see numerous people have spent a lot of time compiling images they claim prove Bowen plays "dirty."

Of course if you look around on YouTube you can find all sorts of things:



Oddly enough the Suns and Spurs fans have similar mantras. In Phoenix you'll hear fans screaming "Go Suns Go!" In San Antonio, we've come up with the clever catch phrase of "Go Spurs Go!"

Perhaps for this series we should change it to something both sides could cheer.

I apologize for this in advance...avert your eyes if you hate bad puns and slightly bawdy language, but I can't get the phrase out of my head:

"Go Nads Go!"

Thanks, I'll be here all week.

Time to go turn on the radio.

Cracked By The Code

Honestly, I have sat down about 10 times in past few days with the intention of writing something, but have become distracted by a desire to "make a quick change" to my blog template.

Invariably, I then spend several hours trying fix the "quick change" and then, of course, trying to make the change again. If I succeed, without fail, I realize that my minor alteration screwed something else up and so I try to fix that, which messes everything up again.

Eventually, rather than applying for a job at the Postal service so that I could rationalize my desire to "go postal" on my computer, I decide to take my mind off it all and go read other people's blogs, which of course all seem neat and tidy.

When I'm in these obsessive compulsive moods I quite often end up writing really long comments on those other blogs...and then realize if I try to write something on my blog, I'm certain my body will go through a form of gravity defying indigestion and my brain will erupt in a nausea inducing fashion.

So I haven't written anything for a few days.


You should be thankful.


Still I did just notice some little quirky thing on the blog template that no one else will even see, and I'm working hard to resist attempting to "fix" it.

I gotta go.


Believe me, it's for your own good.

Image from Anatomorphex Special Effects

Computer Woe Is Us

We've been snake bit by computer glitches lately. Amy's had the worst of it and it seems like every time we get one thing fixed another thing goes wrong.

I woke up from my well deserved nap (after staying up far too late watching the Suns spank the Spurs) to find my computer at a "Blue Screen of Death."

Luckily I was able to get my laptop, which is having power issues, to come to life long enough to track the issue to a program I had a run while trying to diagnose one of the problems on Amy's computer.

I rebooted into "safe mode" and turned off that driver verification program which Microsoft apparently put in to bedevil me, and my computer now runs seemingly as well as it was before.

Microsoft's "error reporting system" asked that I send it a report on the error, which I did and then it took to me a website saying essentially: "This error is caused by a driver problem. Solution: None."

Gee thanks, you've been a big help.

Moving Slightly To The Left

No, this isn't a political post. It's really a test post for the most part.

I've been diddling with trying to use the new features of Blogger, which seem to go to extremes to make it impossible - or at least maddening - for people like me who don't want to use Blogger as their host to utilize these supposedly cool new "layout" features - which you can't see unless you move.

I got so frustrated, I was going to jump to WordPress...but that seemed like I was going to have to use 70 different "tweaks" if I wanted to move this blog, retrieve my photos, comments, permalinks, etc.

Finally, I decided I would stay with Blogger, live without the grand new "layout" features designed to make my life simpler, and move the blog to MichaelMain.com.

If you subcribe to the blog thru an RSS reader, I'm fairly certain completely unsure those feeds will still work. I succeeded in posting this to the old location for people and reposting it here, so hopefully it'll get everyone on the same page...pardon the pun.

If you are kind enough to have this blog bookmarked, or a link to this blog on your site, I would appreciate it if you would change that link to: http://www.michaelmain.com.

Yes, it would have been a lot smarter of me not to change everything before I wrote this...hindsight is...sigh.

Oh well.

Let's see what happens.

Assuming I do this right, I know that's a big assumption, this will be the last post at michaelmain.com/blog.htm .

Thanks to "Sunflower", I've redirected the old site to this one, so all of this is really nonsensical at this point.

Personally, I feel that is probably a universal rule for most everything I write anyway.

Many Are Scrawled But I Am Chosen

You need not necessarily bow before me...of course this is a risk you take on your own since I am "The Chosen Vessel."

Yes, it came as something of a surprise to me too, but I'm adjusting.

I've been dealing with spam filters this week. A friend wrote me an email I almost missed since my two home computers as well as the computer I use at my office decided the message was "spam." I'm assuming...er..sorry, "The Chosen Vessel" never assumes or for that matter I suppose apologizes - I assu think am certain that's how "The Chosen Vessel" operates - but honestly I haven't gotten a crown, scepter or even "The Chosen Vessel rule book" yet. Anyway, my friend's email got snagged most assuredly (that's better) because said friend of "The Chosen Vessel" made brief mention of a prescribed medication during the course of the email. Luckily, being "The Chosen Vessel," I tend not to trust spam filters since they are not the creation of "The Chosen Vessel."

This week I...er..."The Chosen Vessel" also noticed a story about a woman in New Zealand, a web designer, who emailed her broadband provider only to get a response that her email was rejected for containing "inappropriate content." That content was ... her name. Her first name is, "Gay."

Alas, too bad she's not "The Chosen Vessel."

Everyday at the office I...oops, I'll get the hang of this soon... "The Chosen Vessel" gets a message from a corporate spam filter computer informing "The Chosen Vessel" that email directed to "TCV" has been deemed inappropriate and requesting "The Chosen Vessel" check to make sure the spam filter is not being overzealous. Although almost 100 percent of the time the filter is correct in its assessment, each email header must be surveyed anyway to be certain...such are the burdens of being "The Chosen Vessel."

"The Chosen Vessel" also has another spam filter within the actual email program installed on "The Chosen Vessel's" office computer, which tags stuff on its own such as it did that friend's aforementioned email as well as a multitude of messages from on-line pharmacies, websites catering to deviants, or from politicians... "The Chosen Vessel" does realize that some of those categories overlap.

Some emailers have been specifically tagged by "The Chosen Vessel" to be diverted to "junk mail" since they never write anything worth the expense of "The Chosen Vessel's" increasingly valuable energies, time, and obviously superior brain power. Others are apparently picked at random by Microsoft as a result of voodoo-like algorithms presumably known only to a cabal of censors given this sacred task, along with stock options that will allow them to retire before they reach legal drinking age.

Even "The Chosen Vessel" knows better than to tarry in argument among the recluses in Redmond...or India...or wherever they actually exist.

So with all this digital armor in place, "The Chosen Vessel" is quite confident that "We" ( Is the use of the royal "We" appropriate? Sure wish "The Chosen Vessel" had the rule book. ) is are indeed "The Chosen Vessel" since Mrs. Agnes Samuel, who no doubt went to great lengths and untold scrutiny ascertaining my "Our" - gosh, this is getting tougher and I'm "The Chosen Vessel, imagine how difficult it would be for ordinary folks - "The Chosen Vessel's" stature, integrity, and background merited such distinction.

Of course I'm sure there are a few cynics among the great unwashed and uncrowned ("The Chosen Vessel" is certain the crown is forthcoming, no doubt by FedEx) who might argue such determination was made based solely on Mrs. Agnes Samuel's realization that "The Chosen Vessel" shares her obvious prowess in the art of things like spelling, grammar, punctuation, consistency in regard to verb tense, and actually including all the intended words in written sentences. Posh! To those "We" say, "Wait until my 'The Chosen Vessel's' bequeathed fortune arrives!" Better hope it doesn't include a Royal guillotine, this power could go to my"The Chosen Vessel's" head...or worse yet yours.



To: Main, Michael
Subject: The Chosen Vessel.

Beloved,


I am Agnes Samuel now undergoing medical treatment for cancer now. I am married to Dr. George Samuel who worked with South Africa embassy in Malaysia for nine years before he died in the year 2000. well I will only try to let you know who Dr. George Samuel is by stating his philosophy of life ."life is worth living only if lived to the service of mankind" and "You make a living by what you earn, but you make life?

Having known my poor health condition I have decided to donate my fund to a church, better still a Christian individual or a Moslem that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct herein.

My Attorney will issue you a letter of authority that will empowers you as the original beneficiary of these funds. I Choose this means to locate you because I am sure I will be lead by a good Spirit to the kind of person that will be honest.

Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I stated herein.

In His Arms.
Mrs. Agnes Samuel.



It must be true!

I...er..."We" mean this message of destiny evaded all of the previously belabored spam filters!

It is surely written in the stars! I...dang..."We" simply hadn't observed its obvious presence until now due to the many duties and burdens "The Chosen Vessel" deals with daily.

"The Chosen Vessel" is of course aware that there were one or two emails going around that might have appeared slightly similar to this yet were actually scams, but corporate spam computers in addition to the mega-minds at Microsoft obviously have already dispatched with all of those after all these years...right?

Ahem, "The Chosen Vessel" didn't mean to imply any doubt of my "Our" "The Chosen Vessel's" divinely Agnes bestowed reasoning prowess.

However....


Just in case...

If any of you are still bowing?

You should probably stop that now.

Yeah, "The Chosen Vessel" I didn't really figure anyone was bowing anyway.



"The Chosen Vessel" is willing to consider the insulting possibility that he "We"...aw heck, that I'm just a jughead who got spammed.

Unless the FedEx guy shows up with a scepter.

Next....

Work beckons in three hours or so...so why am I writing?

Well, I was watching this great movie, "Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead..."

Only kidding....

Congrats to Denver on a classy series. Next year, they're going to be even scarier.

And all hail Michael Finley!



The new 3-point playoff record holder for the Spurs!

Sigh...now my only problem is that I have to root for the Lakers...to tire out Phoenix for a while.

Go Spurs Go!


If you're not a sports fan...sorry, I'm liable to be slightly completely obsessive about the Spurs over the next month or so.

However if it's any consolation...I am "The Chosen Vessel."

I'll explain that tomorrow....unless I watch the game again just for fun :)

Playoffs.....zzzz

It's NBA playoff time...and make no mistake, I want to watch the Spurs win!




However, don't expect me to cheer when games start at 10 p.m... I'll try, Go Spurs G....awe, let's face it, I need to go to sleep.

zzzzz